Brawls, wails and catcalls as National Assembly passes security law

The National Assembly Thursday evening passed into law the contentious Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 amid brawls, wails and catcalls.

MPs shamed the House by fighting, hurling abuses at each other and one splashing water on Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso.

Kenyans watched the events live on national television as their representatives exchanged blows, tore the Order Paper, an official record of the day’s transactions, and fought for control of the Mace.

They had been recalled for a special session to debate the controversial security laws which had been criticised for taking away some of the civil liberties guaranteed in the Constitution.

Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama who was sitting together with senators James Orengo, Boni Khalwale and Moses Wetangula, among others, had his trousers and shirt torn in a scuffle.

The Senate was not sitting but senators affiliated to the Opposition Cord were in the House as spectators when the Speaker ordered them thrown out for shouting as debate went on.

PASSED WITH AMENDMENTS

The laws were later passed with amendments amidst shouts and more chaos.

In an unusual scene, the Mace was guarded by seven orderlies and the Sergeant-at-Arms to protect the authority of the House from being grabbed by the rowdy Opposition MPs.

The stage for the chaos had been set in the morning as MPs came to the House to find the entire area around parliament surrounded by police officers.

The Speaker, Mr Justus Muturi, appeared to anticipate the chaos when he took the unusual step of warning MPs against misbehaving.

The tradition in most commonwealth parliaments is for the Speaker to remain “unaware” of events until an MP raises his attention to happenings.

The Speaker then invokes the provisions of Standing Orders, which are House rules, or when it is not provided for, makes a ruling.

There were missiles thrown at the Speaker, MPs cursing, pushing and shoving each other and others fighting with senators in the public galleries as the controversial Bill on security was passed in a day of drama never seen before in the National Assembly.

Cord MPs stuck to the instructions of their leaders and arrived in the National Assembly for the special sitting prepared to stop the passage of the Bill by any means possible.
In the morning, Suba MP John Mbadi grabbed the Order Paper from Asman Kamama’s hands and tore it up.

LABOSO SPLASHED WITH WATER

During the afternoon session, Homa Bay Woman Representative Gladys Wanga splashed water on Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso in an attempt to stop the Third Reading of the Bill.

Later, after the House had approved the appointment of Major-General (Rtd) Joseph Nkaissery as the Cabinet Secretary for Interior after a lot of filibustering by Cord MPs, Mr Muturi took charge and was pelted with missiles – huge books on law, sheets from the Order Paper and water bottles – as he guided the passage of the Bill.

Mvita MP Abdulswamad Sherif stood on a bench and MPs hurled insults at each other on the floor in the middle of all this, with Parliament’s sergeants-at-arms forming a body ring around him and blocking the missiles.

This happened as the MPs milled around, some standing guard as Mr Kamama read out the amendments with Jubilee MPs who could hear him shouting ‘Aye’.

Outside the main chamber, senate leaders Prof Kithure Kindiki and Moses Wetang’ula conferred.

Some Cord senators had unsuccessfully tried to storm the chamber, with officers, who appeared to be from the Recce Unit, standing guard.

EXTRA SECURITY

The officers were among extra security deployed to Parliament, where MPs arrived to find a cordon of police officers thrown around Parliament Buildings and the public and press galleries locked to everyone but Parliament staff.

Before the drama in the morning started, Speaker Justin Muturi warned MPs against bad behaviour, particularly the grabbing of the mace that happened last Thursday.

He told the MPs that they risked losing their allowances and eventually their seats for misbehaving.

When he finished, Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba challenged the ruling, was ruled out of order and then condemned the cordoning off of Parliament by police officers, who had been deployed there from early morning.

Mr Mbadi and other MPs from ODM then unsuccessfully tried to have the Speaker stop the proceedings.

Mr Junet Mohammed (ODM, Suna East) tried to ask the Speaker to convene an informal meeting to agree on the amendments. He was turned down.

Ruaraka MP Tom Kajwang’ then sought for a break to allow MPs who wanted to make amendments to prepare them.

Deputy Minority Leader Jakoyo Midiwo then asked the Speaker to rule on the constitutional issues in the Bill but that was equally denied.

Then came the drama.

With the noise almost drowning him out and Dr Laboso having to deal with the fact that all Cord MPs were on their feet at the same time, Mr Kamama had successfully proposed amendments to the first four clauses of the Bill when Mr Mbadi strolled across the floor, his hands in the air.

TORE ORDER PAPER

He reached the first row of benches on the Jubilee side, grabbed the Order Paper from Mr Kamama, tore it up and threw it on the floor.

His colleagues shredded their papers and threw them on the floor. The singing, dancing and chanting was unrelenting all along.

Mr Muturi re-entered the chamber, took control and then noticed Senators Johnstone Muthama, James Orengo, Moses Wetang’ula, Dr Boni Khalwale and Janet Ongera in the Speaker’s Gallery – across from where he sits.

He ordered their ejection because they were making noise and waving. He then adjourned the sitting until 11.35am. The singing continued.

When he re-entered the chamber at 11.35am, nothing had changed.

The Speaker then adjourned the sitting to the afternoon and left through a backdoor, with the heavily-guarded mace taking the same route.

Parliament staff had not managed to eject the Senators from the Speaker’s gallery and, from videos taken by MPs on their phones and tablets, some Jubilee MPs had joined them in trying to throw the senators out.

Mr Muthama would later display what he described as injuries to his chest and with his trousers torn.

Some of the Jubilee MPs who ascended to the gallery later claimed that one of the senators had a pistol and that it had dropped as they tried to drag him out.

Among MPs who were in the scuffle in the gallery were Moses Gikaria (Nakuru Town East, TNA), Muthomi Njuki (Chuka/Igambangómbe, TNA), Joseph Kiuna (Njoro, TNA), Kimani Ngunjiri (Bahati, TNA), Alice Ng’ang’a (Thika Town, TNA) and James Gakuya (Embakasi North, TNA).

Mr Simba Arati (Dagoretti North, ODM) later claimed that his finger was bitten in the melee.

When they resumed in the afternoon, Cord MPs deployed delaying tactics again, with Mr Mbadi, Mr Nyenze and Mr Namwamba questioning the supplementary Order Paper on the basis that it had not been distributed an hour to the start of the sitting.

“You can heckle to the high heavens but this is a House of order and it must be run on order,” Mr Namwamba told his colleagues.

ANGRY AT FILIBUSTERING

Bare Shill (Fafi, URP) was angry at the filibustering.

“Our colleagues on the other sides have a different agenda. Their agenda is to cause havoc because they see they don’t have the numbers.

They are trying to treat this House like what we used to see in the Nairobi City Council, and most of them are on the other side,” he said.

Mr Muturi then dropped from the Order Paper a proposal to express the sitting until all business is finished to accommodate Cord’s views.

But when the debate on the security Bill resumed, Dr Laboso had presided over the passage of three sections of the new law when she was splashed with water and forced to stop.

The Speaker then came back and reorganised things so that Gen Nkaissery could be approved.

When that ended and the Third Reading of the Bill (when proposed laws are scrutinised clause by clause) resumed, it was back to the fighting and singing and Mr Muturi then presided over the passage of the Bill, with the missiles flying around him, everyone standing and the committee chairmen who were proposing the amendments barely being heard above the din.